Today starts this season’s first big adventure. The plan is to ride to Pittsburgh, PA, meet up with my son, and we’ll ride east and take the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park from north to south. From there we’ll travel south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, check out the Tail of the Dragon, and then tour a bit of eastern Tennessee before heading back to Pittsburgh. From there I’ll head back to Billings but will take a different route than I did in 2021. Also, back on that trip, and a few others, I stuck to 2-lane roads but this time, I’ll take whatever road works best, still with a preference for 2-lanes over riding “The Slab.”
Yesterday I rounded up my stuff and got it mostly packed and then loaded it on the bike this morning.
I was pretty much ready to go about 8:30am and saw this on the weather app.
By the time I got to downtown Billings it was definitely raining but the bike is handling great and I’m glad I had new tires mounted a couple weeks ago.
I went through downtown and got on the freeway and headed toward Hardin.
I should note that this was NOT a big picture-taking day as conditions really didn’t lend itself to that.
I got on I-90 and went up the big hill. The rain started getting heavier and I was regretting not donning my rain gear by default. By the time I got to the top of the hill, the rain turned to snow and it snowed pretty heavily for the next 20 miles. I kept an eye on the air temperature and it was dropping and finally stuck at 35°. The snow was melting on the road but starting to accumulate in the passing fields and on my windshield.
When I got to Hardin I pulled off and got my rain gear out. I have a rain liner that goes in my jacket between the shell and the thermal liner. The shell was wet but water hadn’t reached the liner yet. My rain pants go on over my riding pants. My riding pants are the armored type and pretty solid and I had their thermal liner in. I had Levi’s on under that. So, I was really pretty warm and dry considering the conditions. I’m wearing my insulated waterproof gauntlet-style gloves and running my grip heaters on 11. ;-)
I got back on the freeway and rode to the Bighorn Battlefield. I needed a comfort stop and wanted to figure out why my visor was fogging up. I have a PinLock liner in the visor that came with the helmet and it really has worked well in the past keeping fog at a minimum but when I looked at it, the bottom seal was loose. I’m thinking that maybe it has shrunk a bit or something but I didn’t want to sort that out today. I fiddled with the hinge on the visor until I remembered how to remove it and then removed the PinLock liner and put it in the rear pocket of my jacket. Wow, clear vision again.
One thing I know to be true is to have a system for everything when traveling. This goes here and that goes there. When I was ready to take off I couldn’t find the key to the bike. I didn’t panic but it took a full search of pockets before I found it. I now have a designated coat pocket for the key.
I got on Hwy 212 and headed east. This is a pretty nice 2-lane except that it is a shorter route from Rapid City to Billings than taking the freeway so there is LOTS of semi-truck traffic. When they go by in the other direction, about half of them put out a blast of wind that is scary, especially the cattle wagons.
The rain picked up and the other side of Busby, when the elevation increased, it turned to snow again. I kept my speed just under the speed limit and because of that I was passed by everyone else.
Then, all of the sudden, coming out of the mountains, the sky cleared and there was sun. This was in Ashland where I stopped for gas and another comfort break. A woman at another pump was from Pennsylvania so we chatted a little. She’s headed west and asked me if she could take a selfie of us as she likes collecting photos of people she meets on her travels.
So, I had 125 miles of lousy weather and it was exhausting. In Broadus I parked by the courthouse and ate a sandwich I’d brought and had a little break.
Hwy 212 continued on and took me through a small corner of Wyoming before entering South Dakota.
Once I’d calmed down from that, the wind picked up. A lot. It was coming from the southeast and my guess it was ranging between 45-60 miles per hour. It was hard work keeping the bike from drifting. Then I hit more rain. I slowed to 45 mph and battled both the rain and the wind for 15-20 miles. The rain finally quit but the wind hung on all the way to my stop for the day in Faith, SD.
Faith has a campground in their city park where I’d stayed in ’21 so I knew it was worth doing again. $10 a night with 110 electric, a nice bathroom with sink and flush toilet, and nice spots to set up in. Before stopping at the campground I went to the grocery store for orange juice for tomorrow morning and beer to go with my dinner. The beer selection is quite limited. It was either Coors Lite or a mixed beery blonde from a brewery in Sturgis. I got the blond and it’s OK.
The wind is still an issue but I got my tent set up no problem. I gave it extra security by lashing it to my bike.
Other than the snow, that looks like fun.
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